WSU’s Large Carnivore Conservation Lab is at the cutting edge of proving how predator populations police themselves. How sport hunting quotas that exceed reproduction rates lead to increased conflicts by removing the breeding adults that keep order, research we continue to submit to state agencies stuck in 19th-century fantasies of predator management. Heres’ the Lab’s […]

Since our previous post on the subject, we received a gracious response to our hunting proposal questions from Sam Wilson at Nebraska Game and Parks, including a clarification of the number of cougars killed in Nebraska for reasons of threat and safety: 19 since 1999. Most of those were cougars wandering into residential neighborhoods, where […]

Nebraska Game & Parks concludes their 2013 Recommendations for Mountain Lion Hunting with these words: “The Commission intends to manage mountain lion populations over time with consideration given to social acceptance, effects on prey populations, depredation on pets and livestock, and human safety.” Public attitude surveys about cougars in Nebraska are absent from the Recommendations. […]

The decision on a limited hunt proposed for the Pine Ridge National Forest of Nebraska was delayed Friday pending review of public and written comments by Nebraska Game and Parks Commissioners. CRF commented questioning whether the proposal to take 2 males and 1 female of an estimated 22 cats was below the 14% take recommended […]

As many predicted, as we predicted, despite SDGF& P’s re-estimate raising the Black Hills cougar census, and after several years of unsustainable quotas, 2013’s hunt came up significantly short of the 100 cat quota; 35 short of the female sub quota. However, an additional 17 cats were killed during the hunt for other reasons, at […]

Washington State University’s Large Carnivore Conservation Lab has provided 15 years of research on cougar social dynamics. As we’ve pointed out previously, their results have demonstrated how sport hunting (which tends to target ordering big toms) shreds the cougar’s social network and increases conflicts with pets, livestock and us. The conclusion to this video, which […]